Saturday, June 20, 2009

Iran and Gold

When gold is in a decent uptrend, news such as this week's about events in Iran would send it at least moderately higher. Today we have the previously unimaginable event, which we may in America greet with some schadenfreude, of a suicide bomber striking an important site within Iran, per the New York Times:

Update | 10:11 a.m. Reuters reports that an Iranian news agency says that the bombing in Tehran on Saturday at a highly symbolic site was carried out by a suicide bomber:

A suicide bomber blew himself up near the shrine of Iran’s revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran on Saturday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

“A few minutes ago a suicide bomber blew himself up at the shrine,” Mehr quoted a police official, Hossein Sajedinia, as saying. Two other people were wounded in the incident in the northern wing of the shrine, another news agency, Fars, said.

DoctoRx here. Major civil unrest in Iran, continued bombings in Iraq, continued war in Afghanistan and waxing/waning war in Pakistan; Fannie/Freddie (the American taxpayer, that is) looking at 125% loan to value mortgages: yet gold can't move. There are no short-term net inflationary pressures, outside of Chinese commodities buying, which are thought by some experts to be fueled by speculation rather than by use. It is felt at EBR that gold has a bright future, but lower prices may well be in the offing.